


For and Against

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Juris Imprudence [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-27 17:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the comment_fic prompt: "any lawyer/legal fandom, any, Human After All (Daft Punk)". The associates at Woolsey O'Neill & Weir have a running bet on whether one of the paralegals, Evan Lorne, is in fact a robot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For and Against

Rodney wasn't sure who'd drafted the memo, because when it landed in his inbox, the return email address was: all_assocs@woolsey-oneill-weir.com. As he was a scientist first and a lawyer second, he didn't accept anything without evidence to back it up, so he reviewed the memo, and added a few of his own observations for further consideration. He was pleased to note that some of the other associates had done the same.

* * *

To: All Associates  
From: All Associates  
RE: Evan Lorne, robot or not?

In order to determine whether the glorious halls of Woolsey O'Neill & Weir have been infiltrated by an evil robot going by the name of Evan Lorne (and to determine who will win the associate-wide wager), please consider the following contentions for and against the premise that Major Evan Lorne, USAF (ret.) is a robot:

 

**FOR**

1\. He never needs sleep. A six-inch stack of tax files assigned to him at 4PM arrived on the assignor's desk promptly at 10AM the next morning, as requested. Lorne showed no evidence of being sleep-deprived as a result of his efforts. (He could have worn make-up. Has anyone looked that closely? -MRM)

2\. He knows too much. He knows _all of the things_ , even things outside of his department. He knows everything about everyone in a deep and uncanny way. _See Exhibit A_. (Is this Rodney? Dressed as a Cupid? Because he's kinda hot. Doesn't mitigate how annoying he is, though. -AT) (I needed money to eat real food in college, all right? -MRM) (Obviously it's Rodney; he's flipping off the camera. SC) ("All of the things"? Specificity please, counsel. DJ)

3\. He is too efficient. He can serve snacks to every senior associate precisely when they want them, can run numbers on tax files and on bankruptcy files, run a photo shoot for orphans, draft memos, research briefs, all in a forty-hour work-week. (He works overtime, actually. -JPS) (He knows all our food allergies, too. -MRM)

4\. He suffers no harm. He can put in sixty hours in a week without breaking a sweat. He can drink inhuman amounts from office close to midnight and sail into work on time the next morning without any hangover or apparent liver damage. (One time he stepped in front of an angry gun-wielding client to protect Woolsey. The gun went off and Woolsey's portrait of his pet Yorkie was forever ruined, but Lorne was totally fine. Not even a bruise. - CM) (Seriously, though. Lorne was doing the jitterbug, complete with lifts and spins and complicated partner-turns, and he'd had at least six shots of tequila. -MRM)

 

**AGAINST**

1\. He can create art. The photographs he took of those orphans were beautiful. He captured their souls. (Not orphans but youth in custody. -DJ) (Could be he's just a soul-stealing machine. -CM) (A computer once convinced a crowd of college students and faculty that it, and not the English Major against whom it was competing, was the human and not her after commenting on Shakespeare's sonnets during a Turing Test. Art is not evidence of humanity. -MRM)

2\. He can dance. Really, really well. Has a great sense of rhythm. (See comment above re: Turing Test. -MRM) (How do you know he has a great sense of rhythm? -LC) (Video or it didn't happen. -TE)

3\. He consumes food and drink. One of the reasons he always brings snacks to others is that he's constantly getting snacks himself. Obviously he needs the sustenance to work as hard as he does. (This may mitigate against his humanity. If he's constantly getting food, how does he get anything else done? -MRM)

4\. He can weep. When asked to organize a trial binder for Daniel Jackson, which contained photos of a distressing nature (autopsy photos of an infant who died from abusive head trauma) he accepted the job and completed it in a timely fashion, but he appeared to shed several tears when he looked at the photos, which he did linger over in perhaps a less-than-timely fashion. (A well-crafted humanoid robot can appear to bleed or weep, so this may just be evidence of the high level of deception he is perpetrating upon this office. -MRM) (He has a family. A mother and a sister and a niece and a nephew. -RD) (How do you know that? -JPS) (I asked him once. -RD) (No insider trading, remember? -JPS) (No father? Sounds like a robot to me. -JQ) (He could just be estranged from his father. -CB) (I heard his heartbeat after the gun incident with Woolsey. -JF) (Shedding several tears is not "weeping." He might have had something in his eye. -JPS) (Only someone heartless wouldn't have wept over photos like that. -JF) (Or someone who's seen photos like that too many times. -DJ)

* * *

Rodney fired off an email with his annotated version of the memo attached, then turned back to the patent application for the interesting but ultimately useless-sounding long-range communication device (cell phones are dominating the market, thanks) that might or might not end up scrambling two people's brains or possibly transfer their consciousnesses into each other's bodies.

Not a moment too soon, too, because Lorne poked his head into the office just then.

"I'm making a run to the new cupcake boutique that opened up next door. Do you want anything?"

"No, thank you." Rodney smiled as innocently as possible.

"All right. Just thought I'd ask." Lorne turned to go, paused, and promptly sneezed.

"Bless you," Rodney said, and then, "are you all right?"

"Thanks. I think so. Might be coming down with a cold." Lorne smiled and moved over to Sam's office to ask if she was interested in a cupcake.

Rodney re-opened the email and fired off a quick addendum. "In the _Against_ section, perhaps a contention that Lorne can suffer ill health? I just talked to him, and he sneezed, and when I asked what was wrong, he said he might be coming down with a cold."

The response from John was immediate. "Or he knows we're onto him, and he's deploying countermeasures. Janet, Carson, one of you go take his temperature."

Janet was the first to reply. "Maybe tomorrow. I really want that cupcake."

Carson's reply was more helpful. "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. The same applies to paralegals. Has anyone seen childhood images of Lorne? After all, he's dug up childhood photos of all of us. He wins the staff baby photo identification contest every year."

It was Teldy who fired off an email to Teal'c and Vala, the firm's investigators, with a bcc to all of the associates. "Childhood photos of Evan Lorne. First one to produce accurate Intel gets a two-week vacation to the Bahamas, all expenses paid. Go."

Neither of them turned anything up, and the betting pool kept growing as the associates continued to report incidents of either Lorne's humanity or inhumanity.

Rodney found out the real answer one night when he had to duck back into the office very late for a file he'd need first thing in the morning at the patent office up at the state capital. He'd forgotten to bring it home with him and knew he wouldn't make it out of bed in time to stop by the office to grab it before he hit the road, so he figured it was better to get it now, even if it was horribly late.

He tip-toed into the back stairwell, took the elevator, and opened the back door as quietly as he could. The office appeared empty – as it well should have been, that late on a Thursday night with no upcoming trials – and Rodney was loathe to turn on a light and accidentally set off some kind of alarm, so he fumbled toward his office in the dimness with only the street lamp from below providing any kind of illumination –

And he heard a voice.

A child's voice.

What the hell?

Rodney paused, silenced his own breathing, and listened.

"Look at me, daddy!" The voice was high-pitched, of indeterminate gender.

"You're doing great, buddy." The man's voice was unfamiliar, but Rodney could surmise that the child was a boy.

"Can I grow up to be brave like you, daddy?"

"You can grow up to be whatever you want to be, son."

Rodney resisted the urge to snort in derision. Parents really needed to stop deluding their children about their future chances at grandeur.

"So I can be a hero soldier like you?"

"I'd rather you be a painter like mommy."

"But I wanna be like you!"

Rodney crept toward the source of the sound, which was coming from the paralegals' cubicles.

And there, in front of his computer, was Evan Lorne, as Rodney had never seen him before, with his collar unbuttoned and his tie unfastened and his sleeves rolled up. He had a tumbler of whiskey at hand, and he was resting his chin in his hand, smiling fondly at the computer screen while tears rolled down his face.

"Happy birthday, Dad. Should've been painters, you and me both." Lorne lifted the tumbler and drained it in a long swallow.

Rodney retreated to his office and grabbed his file, then hurried home to John, pretty sure he'd made it out of the office undetected.

Just to be safe, he fired off an email to all the senior associates. "RE: previously circulated memo. Another contention in the 'For' column: Has no background skill in computer use. Can access any computer in the office, no matter the level of security on it."


End file.
